Surreal Estate

From a parking garage infused with life to a Jetsons-like hotel design, whether they defy gravity or turn traditional function on its head, here are nine sites from Metropolitan Home that you'll have to see to believe

Most Read

Forget fake rock overhangs. The Illoiha fitness center in Omotesando, Tokyo's stylish shopping district, is home to what is arguably the most unusual climbing wall yet. Created by the young design group Nendo, headed by Oki Sato (MH, Nov '07), the wall is a tongue-in-cheek take on a chic country house. The hard-to-find holds and unusual finger grips are hidden amongst baroque picture frames, mirrors, deer heads, birdcages and flower vases—giving inventive new meaning to getting a leg up (Illoiha.com). —Arlene Hirst

Driving a car isn't the greenest of activities, but the Ballet Valet Parking Garage and Retail Center in Miami Beach, designed by Arquitectonica, puts a sustainable face on it. The building includes street-level shops, a restored Art Deco façade and six parking levels concealed behind a trellised, carbon-dioxide-absorbing planting of Clusia guttifera, Conocarpus erectus, serecius and Scaevola frutescans. Palm trees planted along the sidewalk provide shade. It may be a garage-mahal, but it's a green one. —Arlene Hirst

Dutch bookseller Selexyz hired the architectural firm Merkx + Girod to convert the interior of a former Dominican church into a bookstore in Maastricht. The architects created what amounts to a monumental walk-in bookcase that rises up three stories. There's also a café, housed on the former altar, with a large central reading table in the shape of a cross; just call it an article of faith. —Arlene Hirst

Talk about a room with a view. French designer Jean-Marie Massaud has envisioned a flying hotel he calls the Manned Cloud. The whale-shaped vessel is designed to accommodate 40 guests along with a restaurant, spa and fitness center and would fly high above the treetops at up to 100 miles per hour. The odds of this dirigible bed-and-breakfast becoming a reality may seem slim but Massaud is working with ONERA, the center of French aerospace research, so you may someday be able to drift along in your own hotel. —Katherine Lagomarsino

See London's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew as the birds do—nearly 60 feet above ground. The new 650-foot-long walkway designed by Marks Barfield Architects (designers of the London Eye) allows visitors to meander among the leafy canopies of 50 mature sweet chestnut, lime and oak trees. The weathered steel of the twelve steel trusses, which connect to ten circular platforms, resembles tree bark (Apps.Kew.org/Trees). —Katherine Lagomarsino

As the centerpiece of Hamburg, Germany's massive revitalization of its harbor area (called HafenCity), the new music hall by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron pays homage to the city's connection to the sea. The soaring, shiplike glass structure, currently under construction and set to open in 2011, sits atop the former site of the historic, neo-gothic Kaiserspeicher warehouse. Damaged during World War II, it was eventually detonated and rebuilt in 1963. The new building, at 360,000 square feet, will house three concert halls, a hotel, apartments, a wellness center and a nightclub (ElbPhilharmonie.de). —Katherine Lagomarsino

The stylish, budget-friendly hotel trend continues in Amsterdam with Citizen M, short for Citizen Mobile, the first from a new European chain. Opened at Schiphol Airport, it caters to those seeking luxury and good design at an affordable price. The secret to keeping prices low? The ultra-mod rooms, containing big comfy beds and power rain showers, are manufactured at a factory off-site. (From $100 per night; CitizenM.com). —Katherine Lagomarsino

Move over Willy Wonka—Nestle's museum in Mexico City is the coolest thing in candy land. The bright folds and turns of the origami-inspired building, completed in just 21/2 months by Rojkind Arquitectos, house the chocolate museum, a theater, shop and a tunnel that leads to the factory, where visitors can watch their favorite treats being made. (52/722-276-2500). —Flannery Hoard